Rolling 'Clones'

LOS ANGELES, May 15 (UPI) -- The waiting is just about over, and moviegoers will finally be able to see "Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones" when it opens on approximately 6,000 screens in North America at a minute after midnight Wednesday.

The question remains: Was it worth the wait?

Some critics liked it, but the ones who didn't -- including some of the most influential critics in the game -- offered harsh critiques, finding particular fault with the acting.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said the actors made their characters "seem more like lawyers than the heroes of a romantic fantasy." The New York Times' A.O. Scott slammed the movie for allowing "gifted actors to be handsomely paid for delivering the worst line-readings of their careers."

Washington Post critic Stephen Hunter had hardly a kind word.

"It's too long, it's too dull, it's too lame," Hunter wrote. "Only in its last 40 minutes or so ... does it leap to the warp speed of kinetic grandeur, and even then it's the grandeur of spectacle, not emotion."

Producer-director George Lucas, it has been reported, got the message following similarly blunt criticism of "Episode I -- The Phantom Menace," and set out to deliver a more satisfying experience for fans this time.

However, meeting with reporters recently at his Skywalker compound in Northern California, Lucas said that making a "Star Wars" movie is "not something that you sort of go out and do some market surveys and say let's put this together." Even as he said that, Lucas measured the success of "Episode I" in box-office results.

"I loved that last movie, and it was the most successful 'Star Wars' film of all time," he said. "I knew when I made the film that I was doing something that was not commercially wise, but I had a story to tell."

Hard-core fans have been living up to the name, holding places in lines on sidewalks outside of theaters for weeks. Some, like Shane Utke of Los Angeles, are veterans of the 1999 sidewalk campout for "The Phantom Menace."

Utke has logged more than 370 hours since April 4 in line outside Mann's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. He has no doubt that the movie will turn out to have been worth the trouble.

"I'm pretty confident that this time the movie's going to be much better for the fan than 'Episode I' was," said Utke.

Then again, he hasn't read the reviews or done much of anything else to put himself at risk of exposure to "spoilers" -- media reports or other images that give away potential surprises in the movie.

He has seen the theatrical trailers for "Attack of the Clones" but he said a lot of "Star Wars" fans have even avoided seeing the trailers because they want to be completely surprised when they see the picture.

"How exciting would it have been to see 'The Phantom Menace' without knowing ahead of time that Darth Maul was going to come out with a double-sided light saber -- which no one had ever seen before," said Utke. "And the trailer ruined that."

Utke and his companions in Los Angeles are using the occasion to raise funds for the Starbright Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping seriously ill children.

Larry Ross of Los Angeles has logged a little more than three days in line on Hollywood Boulevard. He said his wife planned to bring their 9-year-old son to the theater for the midnight Wednesday show.

"It's a school night and I'm kind of wondering if I'm being an irresponsible dad," he said, "But, damn it, it's 'Star Wars.' He'll remember this all his life."

Remembering it all your life is one thing. Making it your life is something else.

Autumn Robertson of Orange County -- who has been logging hours in line since April 4 -- said seeing "Attack of the Clones" is going to be "one of the most intense experiences ever." The anticipation alone gives her a visceral thrill.

"Right now, like, my heart's beating really fast 'cause I keep thinking: 'It's tomorrow. It's tomorrow. Holy cow! It's tomorrow,'" she said. "I've been, like, planning this -- well, all my life -- but, like, really planning it since September. Seven months of heavy planning with a short break for 'Lord of the Rings.'"

Robertson said she has grown accustomed to people questioning the value of what she is doing.

"I used to get a little upset when people called me a dork," she said, "but I got over it. One of my friends said she wished she would have the same kind of passion that I did about things that she liked."